Robotics and automation market in Germany reaches new heights

For the first time, the Germanrobotics and automation sector reached a total turnover of 15 billion euros in 2018, which represents 4% growth, according to the VDMA.

"The new record shows that worldwide demand for robotics and automation technologies from Germany remains high. However, the general political uncertainty and cooling of the global economy led to a more moderate growth than originally expected," said Wilfried Eberhardt, Chairman of the VDMA Robotics + Automation Association. "Continuing global economic uncertainties do not permit a precise forecast for 2019. We are currently expecting growth of between 2% and 5% in the current year”.

Last year, machine vision sales maintained a record level of 2.6 billion euros set the previous year. This is consistent with what was forecast at VISION 2018 in Stuttgart, Germany, when Dr. Klaus-Henning Noffz, CEO, Silicon Software and Chairman, VDMA Machine Vision, provided a detailed look at the machine vision market in Germany and Europe.

After initially predicting 7% growth in 2018, a 0% growth rate for 2018 was projected this past November. However, in 2019, the arrow could again begin to point upward,according to Noffz.

Currently, the VDMA predicts that sales in 2019 will increase by 2 to 5% to sales of somewhere in the 15.3 to 15.7-billion-euro range.

Preliminary analysis of 2018 data also shows that development in subsectors of the market varied. Integrated assembly solutions, for example saw a 9% increase in sales for a total of 8.3 billion euros, because of high order backlog and strong domestic business. Robotics, on the other hand, missed the previous year’s sales record of 4.2 billion euros and closed 2018 with sales of 4.1 billion euros, mainly because of weakness in automobile sales, particularly in China.